


Colors

by PacificGuardian



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Attempt at Humor, Bisexual Oh Sehun, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PacificGuardian/pseuds/PacificGuardian
Summary: What does it takes to go from platonic soulmates to boyfriends with a baby?
Relationships: Oh Sehun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 11
Kudos: 66
Collections: Desert Fire Fest Round 1





	Colors

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: DF042  
> Written for Desert Fire First Round 2020, a fic fest for EXO's and EXO-SC's Sehun and Chanyeol.

"I'll go," Chanyeol says in the dark from the other side of the bed as Sehun wonders how they even ended up like this. 

\-----

"Damn, bitch, you live like this?" Chanyeol imitates a meme he had seen online as he steps into Sehun's apartment. His hands are full of his belongings, one bag full of his clothes and a suitcase with the things he had bought after a few years of living alone: a toothbrush, a bottle of shampoo, a few action figures, a single frying pan, and some other personal stuff he would rather not show to his best friend.

Sehun rolls his eyes unamused, dropping his hand from the doorknob. He mutters under his breath complaining about how he was supposed to be the youngest out of the two, but he was the only one with a son and a completely legal contract for his apartment. He positions his sleeping child so he could carry him with both arms as he walks his friend through his apartment. 

"You know the apartment already, you came to the welcoming party," Sehun groans as Chanyeol saves the only frying pan he owned inside the oven. "Hell, you even helped me choose it when I was searching for a place to rent."

Chanyeol closes the oven and crouches down, elbows on the breakfast bar table and hands holding his face, as he cooes at Sehun's son. Sejin moves in his arms and Chanyeol finds himself cowering under Sehun's glare.

"If he wakes up, I'm kicking you out." Sehun whispers in an overdramatic but obviously fake threat, and takes the baby to his nursery room. Chanyeol had helped him decorate it, painting the walls a baby blue and doing some white clouds on them. He didn't know if his son knew how cute the room was or if he only associated the space with his sleeping room, but the baby always relaxed a little bit more when he was in it. He closes the door slowly, leaving it barely open so he could still listen to Sejin crying and with a little prayer inside his head, wishing for him to get his first good night sleep in days. 

"Thank you, by the way," Chanyeol says as he took out his hygiene objects to the bathroom. Sehun hums questioningly as he relaxes even more sitting down in the loveseat and stretching his arms lazily. "I know this was out of nowhere and I'm sorry to come in when you're already struggling with Sejin."

Chanyeol sits down beside Sehun and the youngest yawns as he lays down on the oldest thighs.

"Hey, what are friends for?" He says with a smile as the oldest starts weaving his hand through his hair.

"But still, I was dumb to fall for a scam in 2020," Chanyeol sighs. He had been a fool in the hands of a scammer. Him and two other tenants in the building he used to live in. He had paid a 6-month rent just a month ago to a realtor that didn't even own the building. If the owner hadn't planned to remodel the supposedly empty apartment he could still be living there. Apparently it wasn't the first time that the scammer had done something like this, but Chanyeol only figured that out after a very confused old lady appeared at his doorstep and had demanded him to go to the police to file a report. The police had told him they had been searching the same man for another three cases involving leasing scams.

After a few apologies, all he had gotten from the police is a half promise they would catch him and a half confession of a police officer telling him it would be hard to get his money but he would have to leave the building in the next 72 hours. Of course, his best friend since his diaper days had opened up his doors without a doubt.

“Well, we all do crazy stuff in our twenties,” Sehun mumbles and snuggles closer to Chanyeol’s legs, his lips against the older’s knees, as he felt his sleepless night finally get to him. “I never imagined I would be the first one to have a kid.”

“A baby raising another baby,” Chanyeol teases and yelps when he feels Sehun bite into his leg, followed by a few gentle pats on top of it. Chanyeol could only smile at his friend’s tsundere act, but not without accusing him exactly of that and receiving another bite and soothing afterwards. “Hey, big baby, my legs are falling asleep.”

Sehun sits up with a loud groan only to stop it right in the middle of it and glance at the baby’s room. Once he made sure the baby hadn’t woken up or at least wasn’t crying, he sighs and closes his eyes.

“Always use protection, Chanyeol.” Sehun says, dragging his face down with his hand. 

Chanyeol looks at him funnily, “Ma’am this is a McDonalds drive through, I’m gay.”

Sehun shows him his middle finger, to which Chanyeol only laughs, his laughter even making an echo inside the small living room. Sehun kicks him as he stands up and points at the baby’s room exasperated. His friend bits his lower lip, puffing his cheeks out, face reddening as he tries to swallow his laughter. 

Sehun grabs the blankets he had taken out from the closet, and throws them on top of Chanyeol. They had already decided Chanyeol could sleep on the sofa at least until he either got a new apartment or he could save for a mattress.

"Good night, I hope the spirit of Annabelle keeps you up at night, " Sehun says as he gets a vase of water from the kitchen and takes it to his room. He chuckles as he listens to Chanyeol's reply back. 

"Good night too but how sure are you that I didn't bring my own ghosts from my old apartment?" Chanyeol says with a yawn. 

\-----

Sehun's eyes flutter open with Sejin's first cry. He checks the time on his phone and groans reading it was a few minutes past two in the morning. He sits up as soon as he listens how the monitor is no longer transmitting the baby cries. He runs to Sejin's rooms with the worst thoughts inside his head, going a mile per minute, stumbling through some dirty clothes he had haphazardly thrown on the floor, hitting his hip with his room’s door knob.

What if Sejin was hurt? What if he was choking and couldn't even cry?

He knew his son and it would take a solid hour to make him fall asleep again. Him going quiet out of nowhere could only worry Sehun. He stops right in front of the baby's room hearing a man's voice coming from inside. 

"Who's the cutest angel? Yes, you are." 

Sehun sighs relieved listening to Chanyeol murmuring sweet words to Sejin. He steps into the room, but Chanyeol doesn't even notice him. Holding Sejin tightly in his arms, rocking him back and forth as he sings a soft lullaby Sehun can't even recognize.

He smiles at Chanyeol's back as he calms his own heart down. Sejin was okay and Chanyeol was doing a better job than him at putting the baby back to sleep. It usually wasn't this easy. The pediatrician had said it was because he was missing his mother after getting used to nine months with her. It wasn't as if Sehun could do anything about it. Sejin's mother and he weren't on good terms. They had not even been dating when they conceived Sejin. It had been a one night stand with a girl that had promised him she had been taking pills. Obviously, it had been fake or at least, she had been taking them wrong. He never had the opportunity to ask her as she just left the baby in front of his house with a note that said: I'm so sorry. This is your baby, his name is Sejin. I can't take care of him, I'm so young and you have a better chance at giving him a good life. I'm so sorry, Cindy.

Of course, that had been the fake name she had given him when they met at the bar a few months ago. He knew it had to be a fake name, but he wasn't there to make friends so after a few drinks and shared touches, they went back to his apartment for the night. Her real name was Lee Yejin, or that was what she had written in Sejin's birth certificate that she had saved in a bag next to the baby, with a little notebook describing some of the basics for taking care of him. 

Two weeks later, Sehun, finally accepted his fate with little Sejin. Not that he could have done anything else, after all he was the father. The baby, although not as handsome as him because babies are usually ugly in a cute way, did look like Sehun, a lot. A copy and paste from his facial bone structure, ears, nose, eyebrows. The eyebrows only faint looking when he was left in front of his door, but becoming more apparent as the days passed. He looks at his friend carrying Sejin in his arms, and can't help but to feel jealous. He looks like the father, while Sehun himself still struggled with everything - holding him, feeding him, cleaning diapers, going around the day with zero sleep as he asked his job for a chance to work from home and every second he wasn’t with Sejin, he was spending it on the computer.

He was jealous of how his friend, who to be fair had always been great with kids, befriended his son in a matter of seconds. But he was too tired to think or act on his jealousy, making a small reminder on his head to thank Chanyeol once he wakes up in the morning.

Maybe it was the smell of coffee that woke Sehun up, or maybe it was the sun entering through his window after he forgot to close the curtains the night before. It could be the way his alarm was ringing so loud he had been sure there was a fire alarm in his dream. Sehun decides it was a mix of all three as he walks to his kitchen following the sweet smell of fresh coffee.

"Oh, you're up, I made you coffee," Chanyeol says handing him an empty cup. Sehun hums a good morning and thanks him as he fills his own cup. The older man had only been here for one night and he was already walking around like he owned the house. Rather than all of it being awkward, years of friendship and impromptu drunk and sober sleepovers had been preparing them for these mornings. 

"I have class in an hour so I'll leave at ten. You're still working at home, right?" Chanyeol asks as he spreads pineapple jam in his egg and ham sandwich. 

Sehun scrunches his nose in disgust at the combination, before grabbing one of the sandwiches Chanyeol had made and spreading honey mustard to it. It was Chanyeol's turn to pretend to gag at his friend's "secret recipe". 

"Yes, Sejin still feels too young, too little, to leave him at a daycare or something. " He says in between bites."I know they would probably do a better job at raising him than me, but I don't know."

"You're doing a great job, though." Chanyeol offers a thumbs up as he stands up walking to the sink to scrub the dishes. 

Sehun drinks his coffee hastingly, burning his tongue in the process, to make himself hide the tears away. His friend had only made a nice comment, the kind of comment you say to strangers in the supermarket or an old middle school classmate you meet for the first time in years. An impersonal comment, but Sehun was reminded how he had behaved like a stranger with his best friend. 

Chanyeol barely knew all Sehun had done this past weeks as the younger closed off, only showing the easiest parts of him becoming a parent -the transformed guest room into a baby's room, the new seats for his car, the little baby chair, things cute like plushies everywhere in the living room every time he visited. He was not showing off the countless sleepless nights when he just wondered how he was going to raise a whole kid by himself, or the days he spent researching everything he could about babies, their health, safety hazards in the home, methods of teaching them from an early age so they could excel in school, but also teaching them social skills and not putting too much pressure and forcing them to be linked only to their achievements. A whole headache that only made him respect how his parents had managed to raise him as a kid when all he did was get into trouble, both inside and outside of school, with Chanyeol. 

Sehun hadn't been trying to close his best friend out, at least not voluntarily. Doing it was only his bad habit, one that Chanyeol already knew and didn't even disappoint him anymore, accepting it as a part of the younger and waiting for him to open up every time Sehun went into one of his moods. With Chanyeol living in his house, it would surely be a matter of time for him to trust him with all of his doubts and struggles. 

Chanyeol, with his laptop bag hanging on his right shoulder, gives him a smile delivered with an awkward wave before opening the door and going to work. As a high school science teacher he hadn't seen the need to buy a car when the school he worked at was close enough, and now Sehun wondered if he should have offered him his car or at least a ride since his place was farther than Chanyeol's last apartment. As he was reaching for his phone to give him a call and offer him his car keys, Sejin woke up already crying for food and comfort. Chanyeol slipped out of Sehun's mind as he immediately started preparing his son's milk. 

\-----

When Chanyeol opens up his friend's door, he had imagined he would find his friend working on his computer with Sejin asleep in his room. He would walk in, show Sehun the take-out food he had bought from their favorite Mexican taco restaurant and then the younger would take a break to eat dinner with him. What he hadn't thought it would happen was opening up the door to find a tornado had gone through the place.

Plushies everywhere, a half-bottle of milk in front of the door, the can at the base of the dining room table, two costume hats thrown out in opposite corners of the living room, the cushions out and spread out on the floor and one on top the table; and in the middle of everything, Sehun carrying Sejin. Sehun is sitting on the floor on his knees with Sejin on his arms, slowly swaying from left to right as the baby cries as if his life depends on it, and as Chanyeol steps closer he realizes his friend was also crying.

Chanyeol's heart plummets down to his feet when Sehun notices his presence. Usually, when someone noticed he was crying, Sehun would blink, throw a joke about the situation and pretend everything was fine. But to his surprise, Sehun only hiccups between cries as he looks at him with the most lost, helpless face he had ever seen him do. Red eyes and nose, that show that it had been a while since he had started crying too.

Chanyeol grabs Sejin from his arms as he sits down on the floor next to his friend. Thinking about all the times he had taken care of his neighbor's baby, he starts applying every method in existence to make him stop crying. After a few little claps in the baby's back and a couple of burps from Sejin, the room was finally quiet as the baby fell asleep in his arms. Almost quiet, as Sehun's hiccups could still be faintly heard. Chanyeol scoots closer to his friend and the younger takes the invitation to lay his head on his shoulder.

"Hey, I'm here, take it easy," Chanyeol whispers, resisting the need he felt for kissing Sehun's head. Even if it would be platonic, he had stopped doing that when Sehun complained years ago that he wasn’t a kid anymore. "I'm here." He repeats and instead brushes Sehun’s bangs out of his forehead. “I’m here.” He presses his thumb in between Sehun’s eyebrows, smoothing the wrinkles formed by his frown. “I’m here.” He watches how Sehun rubbed his eyes, clearing the dried tears on his cheeks. “I’m here.”

\-----

"I'll go," Chanyeol says in the dark from the other side of the bed as Sehun wonders how they even ended up like this.

He lets a sigh leave his body as he looks at the ceiling, his back on the bed and his head over the pillows Chanyeol had placed in exchange of his arm. He wasn't a stranger to sleeping with Chanyeol in the same bed as they had grown up having sleepovers where they spent midnight and beyond playing video games. But that had been before Chanyeol had come out as gay. It hadn't changed how Sehun behaved around him since he was bisexual himself, but Chanyeol had taken the decision for both of them to have clear lines for friendship and romance. Sehun had always clowned him saying he had seen too many romantic Disney teen movies, and read too many friends-to-lovers Marvel fanfics, but tonight as he slept next to Chanyeol he realized maybe he had been right. 

It would be a lie to say his heart didn't skip a beat when Chanyeol held him as he cried. It would be a bigger lie to say he didn't see the whole scene as domestic when his friend came home and immediately took care of his son, how he managed to make him sleep in minutes when he had spent about an hour trying to make the tears and wailing stop.

He closes his eyes and curses at himself for even thinking about his best friend that way. The older one had always been good with kids. He was nice with Sejin because he loved children and had called himself the baby's godfather as soon as he met him. Chanyeol had comforted him because they had been friends for years. What kind of friend just leaves you there to cry?

Chanyeol waking up with Sejin's cries and telling him "I'll go" didn't mean anything at all, but why did Sehun feel like overthinking it? After so many tears, his eyes and head were hurting, yet here he was overworking his brain trying to find things where there weren't any.

Too tired to fight himself any longer, he changed position, lying on his side with his own arm folded below his head, not reaching a conclusion whether he was expecting Chanyeol to come back to sleep with him, hoping for it or dreading it.

\-----

When Sehun wakes up, he finds himself trapped by a pair of arms holding him from behind. After a few seconds of confusion, he remembers last night and how Chanyeol had put him to sleep and then even woken up to put Sejin back to sleep again.

He slips from the older's hold as he decides to make up for last night's mess, and with a look to Chanyeol's sleeping face he winces as he remembers yesterday's thoughts. To think romantically of Chanyeol, the same Chanyeol who was now sleeping with his mouth open and drooling in a pillow, who had the worst bed head style he had seen, hair sticking out in every direction and who was using the now free space to extend even more as a starfish covering every single empty space of the bed. He must have lost his mind. Maybe he had gotten drunk with no alcohol ingestion.

"No," Chanyeol whispers and Sehun freezes midstep. Had he woken him up? "I want to be the red power ranger. Nobody likes the blue one."

Sehun bits his lip and closes his eyes trying to swallow down the laugh that was trying to go out of him. Should he make them breakfast or abandon his plan and just stay to record his asleep mumbles?

With a shake of his head he finally leaves the room and heads to the kitchen, opting to make banana pancakes. Chanyeol had sent him the recipe a few weeks ago, promising he would make those for him when they got a chance. Obviously that had been nothing but empty promises, but Sehun was sure his friend would appreciate both the pancakes and him remembering the conversation. 

As he finishes the seventh pancake, Chanyeol walks out of the room groggily, yawning and rubbing his eyes, stumbling in his steps as he follows the smell of fresh food. Sehun tskes and flips the pancake to the plate where he was covering them with a plastic bag and a towel to keep them warm. He poured the other one in when he felt Chanyeol behind him. 

"What are you doing?" Chanyeol's hoarse voice breaks Sehun's concentration on the sizzling sound the batter in contact with the frying pan was making.

"Banana pancakes." Flip. "The recipe you sent me."

"Wasn't I supposed to make those for you?" Chanyeol groans and rests his head on Sehun's shoulder. 

"So you do remember your promise," Sehun muses. "What about 7 months ago when you told me you would teach me how to cook your famous secret recipe tteokbokki?"

"It wouldn't be secret if I told you." Chanyeol teases as he grabs the now empty bowl, dirty whisk and spoons to wash them while Sehun was finishing cooking.

As soon as he turns off the stove, Sejin cries from his crib. Sehun sighs and mutters a quick "serve yourself first" as he runs to his baby. Sejin stopped crying when he saw him and Sehun stopped for a minute just to see his son's smile. 

Some days were bad as yesterday but some days he could spend hours and hours just looking at his son's eyes disappear as he made the cutest smile he had seen. Cooing at him, he lifts him up with care and holds him in his arms as he walks to the kitchen to give him a bottle of milk.

Chanyeol was serving two plates of pancakes and Sehun offered him a small smile, and a whispered thanks as he changed his hold of Sejin to one arm so he could shake the milk bottle.

"Sejin-ah, you're still too young to eat this, " Chanyeol says and slices his pancake, "but let me tell you that this is the first time in my whole life that your father has cooked for me. "

Sehun opened his mouth to argue but closed it as he thought on how it was probably true. Hell, he had even cooked for Sejin's mother, a one-night stand, but never to his best friend. Chanyeol laughs at his horrified expression before assuring him that it wasn't as bad as he probably thought it was.

"These are so good," Chanyeol moans and Sehun blushed at the indirect compliment. "Best pancakes I've ever had."

\-----

"Honey, I'm home," Chanyeol shouts after he closes the door and takes out his shoes to enter Sehun's apartment. No hurricane, no thrown out cushions this time, just Sehun playing with little Sejin who was sitting in his lap. 

"One and one is two," Sehun chirps in that high pitched voice every normal person uses with puppies and mini-humans. He grabs a third plushie toy and sets in front of the baby. "Two and one is three."

"Awww, Sejin is already teaching you the numbers?" Chanyeol teases as he sits beside him and caresses Sejin's head.

"Shut up," Sehun pouts and pushes his hand off his son."I read an article where it said that if you teach them maths since they're babies they will be great at it when they're in school."

"Damn, I wish they had done that to us. Wouldn't have to spend so many hours on school trying not to fail Calculus." Chanyeol sighes tiredly, his head on the couch, looking at them. 

"Don't blame it on your parents. Maybe if you had spent more time studying instead of watching and learning vines, you would have done better." Sehun boops Sejin's nose as he chastises his friend. 

"Well, you used to thoroughly hate Vine during school so what was your excuse for failing?" Chanyeol muses and Sehun instantly blushed remembering the reason. "Didn't you used to hate the teacher? I don't know why though, everyone loved Mr. Kim."

Chanyeol watched Sehun freeze from the corner of his eye. He met his friend's gaze but the latter was the first one to look away. 

"Oh my God, you used to have a crush on Mr. Kim?" Chanyeol whispers theatrically looking sideways to confirm no one else in the empty room was listening in, as if his high school crush was still the biggest secret in the world.

"I didn't know at that time." Sehun groans and Sejin extends his little arms towards Chanyeol, who immediately cooed and took him from Sehun's arms. Sehun fakes a gasp, muttering how betrayed he felt by his own blood and best friend, before continuing with his first love story. "I just thought it was annoying when he talked to other students. It took me a while to realize I would have been okay if he had been talking to me only."

"Honestly? Relatable. Mr. Kim was kind of hot." Chanyeol gives Sejin back to Sehun and walks to the kitchen to search for something to cook. "It's not like he was a pervert pedophile and would have dated any of us, but if I had known you also had a crush on him I would've fought you."

Sehun snorts at the imaginary fight. Remembering how both used to be only unnecessarily tall and no muscle, it would have looked like two giraffes fighting. Sehun follows him to the kitchen and asks him to make his ramen soup special. A special they had both created (Chanyeol used to cook it and Sehun was the semi-professional taster) during Sehun's first year of university, where he had only an electric pot to cook his everyday foods. 

Chanyeol grins at the request probably thinking of the same shared memories of them trying different combinations until stumbling into their best recipe. With cheap beef noodle soup, he threw into the water only the condiments and strained the noodles. Add some soy sauce, oyster sauce, green onions, sugar, red pepper paste and finally throw the ramen package in. Their other friends had been disgusted with the combination, but it became a staple dish in their hangouts. Simple and easy, the perfect college kid recipe. 

It had been a few years since they last ate it together, and Sehun hadn't even done it by himself during that time. Somehow it felt wrong to eat without Chanyeol, as if he was betraying him. Chanyeol serves him a plate and decorates it with some spare green onions, introducing the dish as if it was a vip restaurant. "Good evening, sir. The chef's special: Beef Ramen Noodle Spicy Soup. Would you have any drinks with your dinner?"

"Just water, thank you." Sehun chuckles and sits Sejin on the kid's chair before searching inside the refrigerator for some leftover banana puree he was sure he had saved. After finding it, he grabs one of Sejin's special kids' spoons and starts feeding him.

Chanyeol hums after a few minutes and Sehun spared him a questioning glance. 

"We did not think this very well. Your noodles are getting cold."

Sehun shrugs and replies that he was used to it. Feeding Sejin was more important anyways. 

"Open up," Chanyeol sang, holding the chopsticks in front of Sehun who opened wide his mouth half-confused, half-out of habit. 

As he was chewing he realized what just happened and forced himself to swallow his food before choking.

"What? You feed Sejin and I feed you. Everyone feeds their own baby."

Sehun snorts. 

"And then what Sehun feeds you too?" Sehun asks back and sings Lion King's Circle of Life. Chanyeol joins the song and fills the silences as Sehun is chewing another bite the older had given him. 

\-----

“You asked for a free day?” Chanyeol asks, spitting some toothpaste on the floor as he talked. Watching Sehun’s unamused glare, he opened his eyes funnily, cleaning the evidence with his socked feet while trying to act nonchalantly as if he was just dancing by stretching his legs and dragging his feet on the floor. He walks closer to the bathroom sink and continues brushing his teeth while Sehun answers right outside the door. 

“A day to take Sejin to the doctor; I wouldn’t call it a free day.” Sehun is holding his son as he feeds him a bottle of milk. He wasn't sick at all or Sehun would be all over the place trying to do anything to make his stop having any kind of pain, it was just a routine checkup with Sejin's pediatrician. The baby had been too thin when he was left on his doorstep and both him and the doctor had been afraid it could bring some future health problems. However, as time went by, and following the doctor's indications, Sehun could see his son gaining more baby fat, his cheeks look fuller and even his little chubby fingers were a relief to hold.

"Can we go out after the doctor's?" Chanyeol asks as he dries his face searching for any water left on his chin after rinsing his mouth. 

"Out where? To eat?" Sehun frowns thinking how they had to be sure whatever restaurant they would pick had children's chairs for Sejin.

"I was thinking about that pool in the villa a few blocks away from here." Chanyeol lies back on the bathroom door frame as he watches Sejin peacefully drink his milk to the point his little eyelids were fluttering, becoming heavier with each blink. 

"Sure, I just need to buy Sejin a little swimsuit." Sehun whispers as he notices Sejin had already fallen asleep in his arms. 

"I may or may not have already bought one?" Chanyeol hesitantly says as he follows Sehun to the baby's room. Sehun stopped midstep, and then kept walking as he was shaking his head. He slowly laid him on the crib and brought closer one of Sejin's favorite plushies so he could hug it in his sleep. 

With a sigh, he looks at Chanyeol and shoos him out of the room, leaving the room half open as he went to the kitchen giving his friend a "follow me" sign with his index finger. With a stern glare, he sits Chanyeol on the breakfast bar stool and crosses his arms in front of him. 

"Okay, fairy godmother, I think we need to talk about the gifts." 

"I have no idea what gifts you're talking about," Chanyeol shrugs and avoids Sehun's gaze. Maybe he had gone overboard with the baby gifts but at the same time it was money he had been saving by not paying rent or utilities. Sehun didn't even let him pay for groceries, brushing off the idea by always saying he earned enough money and to not worry. 

"Chanyeol, yesterday you bought him a baby tracksuit," Sehun says and then snorted. "He can barely crawl. What would he do with a tracksuit?"

"Crawl fashionably?" Chanyeol answers with a question. It was the wrong answer he notices as he sees Sehun dragging his hand across his face, frustration clear in his friend's expressive eyebrows. 

"It isn't a big deal," Chanyeol tries again before being interrupted by Sehun. 

"Of course, it is. You always do that." Sehun whines and sits on the other stool beside him. "You always spend so much money on other people. Do you know how guilty I felt during our college years? I felt like more than half the clothes, food and stuff I owned were bought by you. 

Now you're doing the same thing with Sejin. You buy him little overalls, Disney costumes, plushies, toys, even a wig for God knows what reason. Everyday. And then you just say you bought it because you think Sejin will look cute with it."

"But he would, " Chanyeol complains. "I came here for a good time but I'm feeling so attacked. I just tend to buy things for cute people, it's like my personal disease."

Sehun gapes at him, before shaking his head. He only meant Sejin or maybe also him. Chanyeol used to call him baby every time they got wasted. 

"Okay, this is the last time because I'll admit the little Zootopia tiger costume looked cute on him," Sehun says and then points an accusative finger at him. "But this is the last or I'll kick you out."

"His name is Nick and he's a tiger." Chanyeol pointed at him too like the spiderman meme they always used between them. Sehun glares, changing his pointing finger to a finger gun and shooting at Chanyeol. His friend, in return, fakes having a shield to protect him like Captain America to dodge the bullet. 

"Search for apartments, I'll really kick you out one of these days. " 

"You say that every time but I'm still here," Chanyeol teases and pinches Sehun's cheeks. 

\-----

Chanyeol sits outside in the waiting room as Sehun and Sejin had gone inside the pediatrician's office. The doctor had said Sejin was better than expected, but offered some new recipes he should try to give him so he would continue to stay healthy and gain all the nutrients he was missing from his mother's milk. 

As they came out, Chanyeol reaches for Sejin to play with him. Sehun gives him the baby and sighs when he asks himself who was the baby from the two of them. Chanyeol was making more noise in the waiting room than all the babies and kids on there. 

They were already saying their goodbyes when Sehun remembered their outing. "Do you think it would be possible to go to a pool with him? Sejin, I mean, not the overgrown kid I call my friend."

The doctor laughed at how he had described his friend but then hesitates before nodding. "It would depend on the pool. A public one with more chlorine than water would be awful for his sensitive skin but a more private one that has less chemicals would be just fine."

"Any other things I should look at? A limit of time he can be in the water or extra precautions?"

The doctor offered him a smile and a small pat on the shoulders, "Don't let him drown and you'll be fine."

Sehun nods, relieved but also thinking on searching for some extra tips from other parents online. He was sure the doctor knew best, but it wouldn't hurt to look at other people's experiences. He thanked the doctor and walked closer to Chanyeol. Close enough to subtly pull his ear and complain about him making too much noise in a hospital. 

They both chose to make Sehun drive as Chanyeol sat with his friend's son on the backseat, where Sejin obviously had a baby car safety seat. 

"Road work ahead," Chanyeol reads a sign and Sehun prepares his groaning, completely sure the older won't let go of an opportunity like that. "Uh, yeah, I sure hope it does." Chanyeol says, looking proud of his vast knowledge of Vines, purposely ignoring his friend's judging's stare. 

Sehun sighs and takes a two block detour to reach the villa. One day he was going to open the car's back windows and pretend it was an accident yeeting Chanyeol out of a moving car. 

The villa had a baby pool and adult pool people could use if they bought food from the restaurant. They pre-ordered two adult dishes for lunch and asked for a locker so they could save their things.

"How do you even know this place?" Sehun asks as he follows Chanyeol to the changing rooms. His friend was carrying Sejin, who kept trying to eat Chanyeol's fingers that kept booping his nose, while Sehun was carrying the diaper bag. 

"I worked here?" Chanyeol answers, confused by the question. 

"No, you didn't. " Sehun snorts and grabs Sejin to change his little matching outfit to a swimsuit.

"Yes, I did?" Chanyeol takes his shirt and pants off, and Sehun sighs relieved his friend was wearing his swimsuit under. Not that he would hate to see his friend completely stripping off in front of him. But maybe he shouldn't get excited at the idea, it doesn't sound like something very platonic to do at all. 

"No, you didn't. I would remember it," Sehun says, handing him Sejin before starting to take his clothes himself.

"I worked here during 10th grade. I had a summer job as a lifeguard." 

"Why don't I remember that then?" Sehun asks as he strips off his jeans and reveals his swimming shorts. 

"That was the summer you had your first boyfriend, didn't care for anything that was not him," Chanyeol says with a shrug, but Sehun knew him. Chanyeol had always been clingy and that summer he had completely left him on his own as he found his own sexuality, exploring it as if the world was dying once classes returned. Moreover, Sehun knew that voice tone and careless expression. Chanyeol trying to look like he hadn't been hurt, trying to downplay his own emotions in favor of not bothering others, and trying to pretend something from so many years ago was not bothering him anymore. Trying, but failing, miserably. 

"Well, jokes on me, because I would have had a discount for a killer pool," Sehun says trying to lighten the mood, before scowling thinking of his first boyfriend. "And he finished marrying a girl, and telling me I had been just a high school experiment and that it all meant nothing as soon as we went back to classes."

"You never told me that," Chanyeol whispers as Sehun grabbed Sejin back.

"And you never told me I was hurting you that summer." Sehun points to the bags and towards the locker so Chanyeol could save their things. 

"I'm sorry," Chanyeol says and grabbed the bags. 

"I'm sorry too," Sehun says to a retreating back. 

\-----

"It's your turn for a shower," Chanyeol groans and lies beside him on Sehun's bed. His hair was still humid, not wet enough to be dripping but it left a water stain on Sehun's sheets. 

"I don't want to," Sehun whines and scoots closer to his friend. Face to chest, Sehun sighed welcoming the warmth. 

"You're still dirty and will get sick," Chanyeol whispers as he plays softly with Sehun's hair, before giving it a small tug when he noticed the younger was falling asleep with the calming touch. 

"We didn't even swim for real, but why am I feeling so tired?" Sehun groans as he sat himself up.

"Must be all those working days and sleepless nights settling in. " Chanyeol rolls to his side and places an arm under his head. "Wake me up after you shower, I'll move to the sofa."

Yawning, Sehun goes around his room searching for a pair of pajamas he could change into after his shower. After almost falling asleep twice under the warm water, he closes off the faucet and dries himself up enough to climb into clean clothes. He stumbles to the bed, and lies carefully trying to not wake up his friend. 

The sofa must be uncomfortable after all. 

\-----

Since then every night Chanyeol slept with Sehun, sharing the bed. Every night it had been a new excuse: the movie had been too scary, there was a cockroach in the living room, the sofa was full of Chanyeol and Sehun's papers, they had their movie night directly on the bed and just fell asleep. 

This night wasn't any different. Chanyeol was the first one to wake up and go to attend Sejin once he started crying in the middle of the night. Sehun, as always, also wakes up and follows him, staying at the door's threshold to watch his friend singing a lullaby to his son. However, unlike other nights, Chanyeol notices his presence and offers him a smile. It wasn't a tired smile or an annoyed smile at having to be woken up so early, he was smiling as if waking up to hold Sejin was the greatest thing he could do. Sehun smiled back. 

\-----

"You know what's funny?"

It was a Sunday, sometime during Sejin's mandatory post-breakfast bottle time. Sehun paused scrolling through the different series on his television, and seized his friend's expression wondering how to answer that trick question. 

Your face? Too early to be that rude.  
Not you? Too early to be that rude.  
Not life? Too early to be that depressive.  
Me thinking that this year I should adopt a dog only to get a kid instead? Too early to be that specific.  
Not Vine? Definitely, no. Knowing Chanyeol he would probably answer with a Vine reference and keep it up the rest of the day. 

Too many options, Sehun decided as he hummed as a response. 

"You know how we met in middle school?" Chanyeol asks as he lies on the sofa and crawls closer to rest his head on his friend's lap. 

"Yes, I do know it." Sehun says and then yelps when Chanyeol bounced his head in his lap. 

"I'm not finished, don't ruin the moment. " 

"What moment? Help me pick a series, " Sehun whines as he continues scrolling through recommendations. 

"We've known for such a long time, but in this past month I've learned so much about you."

Sehun thinks about Chanyeol's habits and how he pouts his lips as he decides anything, how he freezes when the song shuffles and he's trying to guess which one is next; and how he wakes up in the middle of the night with a nightmare muttering about some science article that correlates nightmares with feeling cold while asleep. He nods before looking down at him, and smoothing out wrinkles from Chanyeol's forehead. 

"What have you learnt?" Sehun tries to ask nonchalantly, but Chanyeol grinned, noticing his friend's amusement mixed with curiosity. 

"You say you hate Vine, but you quote them under your breath," Chanyeol wrinkles his nose. "Don't pretend you don't. I saw you quoting the fresh avocado one."

"You can't prove anything and I'll sue you for defamation." Sehun flicks his friend's forehead.

"I don't think I've ever seen you care so much for someone as much as you do with Sejin." Sehun can't help the smile that grows on his face just thinking about his son. "But then again, I guess I do too. No offense, but between you and that baby, he's cuter."

Sehun sighs and shrugs in defeat. 

"I guess I'll have to retire early from the business."

"You," Chanyeol pauses and unlike the last two answers, Sehun knows this is what he was talking about since the beginning of the conversation. "You don't want to tell people you need help, but you want it."

"I don't accept help from people, Chanyeol. You don't qualify as people to me anymore. " 

"What am I then? Your imaginary friend?"

No, Chanyeol is so much more than a friend. A constant. A platonic soulmate. A promise of always having his back no matter what. 

"More like my imaginary elf friend?"

\-----

“I’ll go,” Chanyeol says, immediately standing up and Sehun wonders how he managed to do it every single time without groaning as an old man just like he did. Sehun follows him with a groan he self-consciously tried to mute down.

Sejin kept crying in Chanyeol’s arms and extended his little arms to his dad when he saw Sehun entering the room. Sehun chuckles and holds him close, moving him up and down by flexing his knees in a small squat and then straightening up.

“I think I heard 10 different bones cracking there,” Chanyeol teases. 

“If you keep laughing your bones are next,” Sehun answers in a cute voice as he continues playing with his son. Chanyeol laughed and sat down on the floor besides the crib. A little bit too tired for his age, Sehun sits down beside him as Sejin continues giggling and playing with his shirt. 

“Don’t make him laugh, make him sleep,” Sehun whines as Chanyeol cooed at Sejin trying to catch his attention with funny faces. His friend answers by sticking his tongue out at him. Sehun wondered if the reason why he was so good with babies is because they shared the same maturity levels.

Chanyeol starts singing a lullaby and Sehun couldn’t help but to feel amazed at his friend’s supernatural powers with babies, as Sejin’s eyelids started to become heavier. 

While he was bisexual, Chanyeol was gay and that left him with two choices: ending up childless or adopting. Ever since they were kids and none of them were out or had even discovered they weren’t straight, they both knew Chanyeol would love to have a family of his own so having no kids wasn’t really an option for him. To adopt one, he would need someone else as a legal requirement. Obviously he wasn’t looking for one right now, especially since he lost his apartment to a scam, but that didn’t mean he didn’t keep searching for his “real one true love”.

“Hey, how did it go with the date you had a week ago?” Sehun asks once they were walking back to his, their, room.

“Ah, he was old,” Chanyeol answers, pausing between his words as if ordering his thoughts inside his head. “Not the good kind of old-"he continues and Sehun laughs at the word choice. 

"Sugar daddy good kind of old?" Sehun teases and slips under the covers. 

"No." Chanyeol rolls his eyes and lays on what is his unofficial side of the bed. "The 'I know what I'm doing' kind of old. You know, someone with experience or who at least has an idea of what he is doing or what he wants to be."

If you had asked Sehun ten months before he was the kind of man that knew what he was doing, who he was, and where he was going. An easy climb of the social and economical ladder as he was young and handsome enough to be easily likeable, while also being talented and smart enough to win everything not based on his looks but hard work. Maybe that's why Chanyeol's explanation was bothering him. 

"You don't think that's a little bit rough?" Sehun asks as he lays on his side to look at his friend. "You can be 20, 30, 60 and still don't know what you're doing, you don't think they all deserve a chance at love?"

Chanyeol stared at the ceiling taking in his friend's words before nodding. 

"Of course they can, just not with me. I can be friends with someone like that but for a relationship I am searching for something," Chanyeol says moving his hands in circles as if explaining what that something was about. "Is it really that bad to have that as a standard?"

"I guess not."

Chanyeol quickly glances at him and then back at the ceiling a few times before Sehun sighs.

"Just say it, I'm not gonna kick you out from my bed." Sehun closes his eyes. 

"It's just that what are your standards? Have they changed since, you know… "

Sehun sighs and switches to laying on his back. He stared at the ceiling thinking over the question, surprised at his own thoughts on what would be his ideal girlfriend or boyfriend. 

"I don't know? It used to be people from certain types of backgrounds, who lived or went to parties in certain zones of the city, or who had connections, but now I feel like I've changed."

"So less superficial, more like the rest of us, mortals?" Chanyeol grins when Sehun scowls. 

"I want a man or woman who would be great with Sejin, of course, it's not like I'm just looking for another mother or father for him but I can't imagine dating someone who hated babies." Sehun pauses and adds as an afterthought. "Being hot and with a stable job is still part of the requisites though."

"What are your standards then? Wait," Sehun gasped. "I just noticed you always go for older men, are you sure you're not into sugar daddies?"

"I'm not, I swear. I'm just into people with purpose, is not my fault people my age go clubbing everyday they can. But if you ever find a hot man who spends his day at home, watching anime and is into men, hit me up."

"Isn't that literally me? Why is your ideal man me?"

"I'm also hot, good with Sejin, and have a stable job. Why is your ideal partner me?"

\-----

"Sejin, your favorite dad is home!" Chanyeol closes the door with his foot since his two hands were busy carrying things. 

"Shut up, you're not the dad." Sehun groans from his room. 

Chanyeol places his laptop bag on top of the dining table. Sehun freezes as he takes in Chanyeol and what he is currently holding. 

"Oh my God, what is that?" Sehun asks, pointing at Chanyeol's left hand. "Let me see what you have. "

"A knife!"

"A what?" Sehun frowns as he walks to the dining table and closes his computer on the way. He groans as he connects the reference. "Vine ended years ago, just let it die, dude. Now what the hell did you just bring?"

"Flowers?" Chanyeol answers his question instead. 

"I can see that," Sehun says as he holds the flowers examining them one by one. "But why?"

"I just picked them up in the street," Chanyeol says with a shrug."Do we even have a flower vase?"

"There's one on the left cupboard, the one your sister gave me when I moved in." Sehun's words are followed by the sound of rummaging in the kitchen, doors and cabinets being opened and closed. 

"How do you even find a bouquet of flowers in the street?" He asks amused as he tucks the flower into the vase. 

"Maybe a confession went wrong?" Chanyeol guesses as he takes off his coat. "At least they're pretty."

Sehun hums as he continues checking the flowers with a smile on his face. "Next time find a bouquet of cash too. Could use some of those to make up for all the times you almost burned the house."

"First of all, this is an apartment," Chanyeol pouts as he notices Sehun's teasing glare. He goes on one knee and starts doing a monologue. "Second of all, you're absolutely right, my Lord. I shall find the biggest lost bouquet of cash thrown out in the street and bring it to you as my proof of honor, my Lord."

Sehun laughs and pets Chanyeol's head as he walks past him to place the flower vase in the kitchen's counter.

"What do we-" Chanyeol breaks off his own sentence. "Sehun, the new season premiered today." A pause and a shriek way too high for someone who had such a deep voice like Chanyeol. "They posted the whole season already."

Sehun laughs as he places a popcorn bag in the microwave. "I'll take it as a anime marathon tonight?" He screams back and mutters some quick thanks that his neighbors had never complained of all the mess they made every night, not even including the baby cries at midnight. 

"Do you have to get up early tomorrow?" Chanyeol no longer shouts back but asks worriedly as he enters the kitchen. 

"No, it's Sunday. Maybe I'll do some planning for next month's agenda in the afternoon, but that's it." Sehun unconsciously nods his head to the popping sounds from the popcorn. Chanyeol teases him about it before pretending to pop his shoulders to the rhythm of the popping corn. 

\-----

"Okay, Sejin, choose." Sehun places three toys in front of his son. "This is chocolate cake, this is carrot cake and this is vanilla."

In a perfect world, Sehun would bake a red velvet cake or black forest cake, Chanyeol's two favorite flavors. In real life, Sehun didn't know how to do any of them and would rather go for a safe option than use his friend's birthday to test internet recipes. 

Sejin chose the second toy and Sehun grimaces remembering he had used the last carrot he had in doing the puree his son had just eaten for breakfast. Sehun changes the first toy with the second one and claps excitedly, making Sejin giggle. "Great choice, my cute son. We will bake chocolate cake."

"Wait, let's set the mood, baby." Sehun mutters as he opens his music app and searches for the song on his mind.

"It's a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake," Sehun sings along as he starts taking out the ingredients -flour, eggs, cocoa, baking powder, oil, milk, orange juice and sugar. 

"If the way is hazy. You gotta do the cooking by the book. You know you can't be lazy!" He sings as he takes out the electric hand mixer, the digital weighing scale, and measuring cups and spoons. 

"Never use a messy recipe," he sings and points a finger at Sejin who just giggles back at his funny faces. "The cake will end up crazy. "

Maybe Sehun should have paid attention to the recipe instead of singing since the cake didn't rise and ended up looking like an uncooked pancake, with a well done exterior but a heavy, sticky interior. The only thing that kept him from crying in frustration was how quiet Sejin was playing with his Nick Wilde doll on the living room's carpet. 

With a disappointed sigh, he grabs a fork to taste if the cake was at least edible. He took a bite and smiled at Sejin trying to chew one of the plushies arms as he slowly walks to the bathroom to throw up. Definitely not consumable. 

He bought a cake from a delivery app asking if it was possible for it to come without decorations. Apparently all cakes sold were premade and therefore already decorated; if he wanted one undecorated, he would have to preorder one and it would take over an hour. So that's why Sehun was scraping off all the frosting from the bought cake and either eating it or throwing it away after he felt that his arteries were screaming in anticipated pain. 

"Sejin, close your eyes! Don't learn these cheap tricks!" He warns his son as he folds the box and saves it inside the bag which it was delivered with. With Sejin in one arm and one hand holding the evidence of the bought cake, he walks down the apartment complex to directly throw it out in the trash. 

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him." Sehun whispers to Sejin in complicity. "This is our first big secret."

He grabs the piping bag full of cheap prepared frosting he bought from the supermarket and starts doing waves as one of the five minute videos he had seen months ago from the Tasty channel. In red, pink, black, yellow, the cake was supposed to represent all the colors Chanyeol had tinted his hair; in reality, it looked like a cheap rainbow design someone had made when not having all the colors and just realizing it after starting to decorate the cake.

On top of the cake, Sehun squeezed the piping bag with real artistry to make possibly the worst rendition of his friend in a drawing. With yellow grasslike hair, deep black eyes and mouth, two huge ears and a horizontal oval, the drawing looked like a caricature even when that was not the intention and Sehun had done it with a photo as reference. 

"It is what it is, " Sehun sings and in a higher voice he sings as if Sejin was saying it after him. "It is what it is."

"This is the first birthday you celebrate so let me tell you some tips. " Sehun sits in front of his son on the living room's carpet. It was one of Chanyeol's not useless gifts, a carpet made for babies so they could crawl without problems and not try to eat the long strands of wool his old carpet had.

"First we sing the happy birthday song," he opens YouTube and searches for a children's version of the song with lyrics, before locking up his phone. "And you don't know how to read." He pouts as his son crawls closer to him. "Or sing."

"Can you clap?" Sehun asks and waits for a moment for an answer before remembering his son would definitely don't understand him. Sighing at his own lack of brain cells, he starts clapping excitedly. His son just giggles. Not one to give up easily, he carefully grabbed Sejin's hands and made them clap. Sejin kept on just giggling.

"You're cute." Sehun grabs Sejin under his arms and smooches his tiny pink cheeks. "You can just giggle and you'll be fine. " He reassures the baby as he lay on his back with Sejin on top of him.

"Gentlemen and tiny gentlemen, I'm home!" Chanyeol shouts as soon as he closes the entrance door. The house was dark so he lit up the way as he changed his shoes for a pair of slippers. "Is anyone home? I don't remember where we have the light switch of the living room."

"Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you!" Sehun started singing next to the light switch, running back to the table where he lights the cake. Chanyeol laughs and turns on the camera of his phone. "Happy Birthday dear yoda." Sehun teases him and taps Chanyeol's ears, who tries to bite his hand. "Happy Birthday to you!"

Sehun claps loudly but stops when he sees Chanyeol frozen looking at Sejin. The baby was also clapping while giggling. They both shared a look of excitement and disbelief, Sehun grabbing Chanyeol's phone and recording Sejin's claps. A few seconds later, Sehun was back to only giggling as they both remembered the cake was still on fire. "Blow the candles!"

Chanyeol blows the candles and chuckles watching the cake's decoration.

"Sejin's first claps and Sejin's first cake decoration, I'm flattered." Chanyeol fakes drying a tear. "The best cake I've ever seen."

"I did the decoration." Sehun frowns and looks at the cake. It sure wasn't as good as he had expected but it wasn't that awful in his opinion. 

"Then, no offense, but-" Chanyeol said taking a bit of frosting with his fingers and smearing it on Sehun's left cheek, "-it's the ugliest cake I've ever seen."

"Fuck off, it's not that bad." Sehun whines and grabs a napkin to clean his face.

"I'd say it's the thought that counts but what the fuck did you draw on top of the cake?"

"That's you," Sehun affirms as he rotates the cake making sure Chanyeol could see it perfectly from his angle.

"Fuck you, that's not me." Chanyeol says but gets closer to the cake and tries to look at it from other angles. 

"Language! Yes, it is. The eyebrows, the big eyes, the big ears, the blonde hair." The younger one says pointing out every detail.

"You started saying the 'F' word! And. No, it isn't. That's a monster, sir." Chanyeol then pouts to Sejin. "Your dad hates me, I think this is his way of asking me to move out."

"Would it work? " Sehun teases, both of them sure Sehun wouldn't want that. Sehun was naturally clingy and didn't even like sleeping alone, while Chanyeol was good with babies and cooking. If anything, this was the perfect set up for Sehun. 

"No, if anything it makes me want to stay just to do a worse drawing for your birthday," Chanyeol says as he haphazardly cuts his cake and Sehun laughs at how one ear fits perfectly in the slice. 

\-----

"We wish you a Merry Christmas," Chanyeol sings for the twentieth time in the day and Sehun groans because even after two vodka glasses, he is not drunk enough. Sejin was asleep, but in case he would wake up, Sehun didn't want to be completely wasted as he gave another milk bottle and put him to sleep.

"Chanyeol, I'm begging you, stop singing and just come and pick a Christmas movie to watch with me. " 

"Just play Home Alone," Chanyeol answers, straining his voice while trying to balance the two dishes in his hands. He handed him his plate of food and sat beside him, before grabbing the remote and choosing the movie before Sehun can overthink it. 

Sehun pouts as he changes his own drumstick with Chanyeol's chicken breast. Even if it was considered by many as the best piece of the chicken, Sehun always hated the piece and as far as he remembers, he always changed it with his friend's piece. Chanyeol usually forgets about it but is always willing to change pieces. As Sehun expected, Chanyeol moves his own dish closer to Sehun in case he accidentally drops one of the pieces. 

"Doesn't this cake taste like my birthday cake?" Chanyeol asks innocently as Sehun opens his eyes, comically remembering the scheme. "You could be selling your cake, just search for someone that knows how to decorate instead of someone who thinks watching Tasty videos is practicing baking."

Neither of them wanted to cook for Christmas so they settled for a bucket of chicken, an order of kimbap and side dishes like fresh kimchi and cucumber kimchi from the Korean restaurant a few blocks away from their apartment, a family order of chicken salad, and a cake from the place Sehun had ordered Chanyeol's birthday cake. 

"Actually," Sehun says, standing up to wash the dishes. "I bought it from there."

"Oh my God, we could sue them for that decoration and become rich." Chanyeol follows him to the kitchen with his own empty dirty dish. 

"Shut up, it was cute!" Sehun splashes him with soapy water. Chanyeol avoids the attack and hides behind Sehun. 

"Yes, it was," Chanyeol whispers on Sehun's neck as his arms encircled the younger. Sehun just freezes in place and rolls his eyes when he notices Chanyeol's dirty intentions. 

"Sneaky bastard," Sehun curses under his breath with an amused grin, as he washed Chanyeol's dish after the older man had left it there and ran back to the living room. 

Sehun brushes his teeth while Chanyeol searches for another Christmas movie to watch. 

"Frozen or A Christmas Carol?"

"Frozen," Sehun says, his mouth full of toothpaste foam. 

"What?" Chanyeol screams back. 

Sehun spits the toothpaste and rinses his mouth before answering again. "Frozen."

"It's on," Chanyeol walks to the bathroom and grabs the toothpaste and his toothbrush. Sehun nods and squeezes past him to the living room where he grabs the blanket from the floor and sits on the sofa covering himself with it. When he comes back, Chanyeol sits on the sofa too and steals some of the blanket's warmth. 

After two movies and a bunch of awkward shuffling, Chanyeol was practically on top of Sehun, entangled legs under the blanket. Both more focused on each other's eyes and approaching faces than on the ending credits.

Instead of freaking out over his own thoughts or Chanyeol's darkening gaze, Sehun feels it was long overdue as his eyes' focus flicker to his friend's lips.

However, just as their lips grazed each other, Sejin starts crying. Chanyeol untangles his legs and with a quick peck to Sehun's forehead, he stands up to check whether the baby needed a change of diapers or if he was just hungry. 

\-----

Sehun takes destiny on his hands as he decorates every door with a mistletoe on New Year's Eve. 

The last few days he had reviewed every detail that had made the almost kiss. From how they easily had come to terms with sleeping in the same bed, to how Chanyeol had already solved his apartment issue but had yet to move out, probabilities were on his side. Instead of looking awkward or blaming it on the alcohol, they both returned to their usual teasing relationship with a few exceptions of easier blushing and a few stolen, not unnoticed, glances to each other's lips. 

It is unexpected, when Chanyeol returns from picking up the turkey he had preordered from a restaurant since he had said he was just going out for a soda. Extra time Sehun had used to decorate their place. Sehun frowns to himself wondering if the mistletoe wasn't obvious enough in the entrance door. 

It isn't unexpected that as soon as he leaves the food bags on the table, Chanyeol grabs Sehun's face and brings it closer to his. 

It wasn't a mistletoe kiss or a New Year's Eve kiss like Sehun had expected but he was kissing his best friend and instead of worrying about what it could mean to their friendship, he was happy to be living in the moment and kissing back.

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to the prompter for writing such a cute prompt, domestic sechan is a need.  
> Also all my love and thanks to the mods for being so patient and making their excitement for this fest contagious. I hope this is only the first round for many more successful years of this fest.


End file.
